Blaine pulled the trigger on an empty chamber. Natalya was already starting to scurry for a replacement rifle ten yards away in the open. Blaine reached to the side and grabbed her, something else in mind. The chaos had spread through the festival well beyond the scene of the battle, and people rushed in panic everywhere, an occasional horse-drawn float or moving market cart charging wildly by.
It was one of these, pulled by a team of horses and packed with breads, that Blaine focused on. He called to Natalya and, with bullets tracing them, they leaped for it as it passed. Blaine’s purchase was better than Natalya’s and he crawled for the reins. She, slowed again by her handcuffs, barely pulled herself onto a stack of bread loaves.
McCracken saw the reins fluttering near the ground and found he could reach them only by lying prone and lowering his arms and upper body between the hurtling beasts.
“Grab my legs!” he screamed back to Natalya.
She did as best she could and he lowered himself between the charging hindquarters of the horses. The reins were a blur beneath him but he managed to grab hold and precariously right himself in the same motion. He was still lying flat on his stomach, though, and from this position he attempted to gain control as the cart continued to rush madly.
“Hahhhhhhhh!” he screamed at the horses, tugging at the leather reins. “Hahhhhhhhhh!”
But the horses kept thundering on, heedless of his commands. John Wayne himself would surely have been at a loss by this point. All Blaine could do was keep pulling on the reins, until the horses slowed and finally came to a halt directly before the Sijilmassa, one of Casablanca’s most elegant restaurants.
“Table for two please,” Blaine said to the dumbstruck doorman.
Chapter 26
Blaine picked the lock on Natalya’s handcuffs in the basement of a smaller restaurant further down the street.
“Mind telling me where those Berber horsemen came from?” she asked him.
“I did a favor for them years ago when a radical group was infringing on their cherished privacy. When I saw you rudely escorted through Vasquez’s establishment, I figured the time had come to call in my marker.”
“And they remembered? They were the same ones you helped?”
“A few were. And Berbers never forget. As a matter of fact, the ones who volunteered were happy to be of assistance. They’ve been warriors for generations. This kind of stuff is in their blood.”
“They spilled plenty back there.”
“But ours was left intact.” Blaine licked at one of his fingers. “Unless you count getting bit by a horse.”
“My government is to blame for much of this,” Natalya told him. “I managed to escape Raskowski and telegraph Chernopolov again but apparently I am no longer wanted.”
“Escape Raskowski? Would you mind telling me what’s happened since I saw you last?”
“It’s a long story and not a very pleasant one,” she began, and by the time she reached the climax Blaine was completely stunned.
“Just seconds before the Red Tide exploded,” Natalya explained, “I dropped into the water through a porthole. I still have a ringing in my ear but the water cushioned me from the blast. I stayed under as long as I could and swam away. When I finally came up, I had to rest. I needed help and decided to call in an old favor to get it.” She paused. “It was Vasquez’s men who showed up.”
“Fat man’s got them everywhere. Must have put the word out on you after he found out you were palling around with me. Vasquez likes to think ahead. Figured you’d come in handy and he was almost right. Okay,” he continued, “let’s take it by the numbers. Raskowski wipes out Hope Valley to illustrate the existence and potency of this Alpha weapon he devised and has managed to deploy within a satellite.”
“Only something went wrong and the satellite self-destructed.”
“So he has to get another beam weapon deployed fast, and with no chance of arranging another launch on his own, he deceives the U.S. government into launching his death ray for him.”
Natalya nodded. “The general is undeniably a genius. Coming up with this contingency plan so quickly proves that but there’s even more. All the manipulations of our two governments were his work as well.”
Blaine nodded. “He had to control and use differing degrees of trust. All his machinations depended on that.”
“And he’s got both our nations perceiving what he wants.”
“There’s one man left I trust in my government,” Blaine told her, “who could blow the lid off this whole thing. Trouble is they’ve cut me off from him. Might just have a friend, though, who can cut me back in.”
They checked into the El Mansour Hotel as a married couple. Blaine chose it because it offered long-distance service from each room.
The contact procedure he had initiated with Wareagle would necessitate the big Indian’s waiting by the same phone in Maine for thirty-minute periods five times a day. The next began in a half hour and it took almost that long for the operator to find an open line over which to place the call. Blaine held his breath as it went through, one ring sounding, then a second.
“Hello, Blainey,” Wareagle greeted.
“You’re in Maine!” Blaine wailed happily. “Goddamnit, you got the message!”
“The spirits warned of another disturbance and told me in my sleep you would be sending word.”
“What about the convention?”
“I stayed long enough to learn that a man’s manitou is as much forged by the impressions of others as his own. We cannot change what we are because others will not let us.”
“It’s bad this time, Indian.”
“When was it not? Our existence has always been scorched by the flames of others’ greed and lust. We escaped the hell-fire only to learn that it wasn’t a place, it was a condition.”
“You avoided it. For years.”
“A temporary reprieve in which the spirits revealed to me my true shape. We get what we want, as well as what we need.”
“The world doesn’t need what’s about to happen to it, Indian. I’d love to deliver that message myself but I’ve got sort of a problem over here. You up to traveling?”
“The travels of the spirit are endless.”
“What I need is for your spirit to lead you onto a plane bound for Washington. Your destination is Virginia, the Toy Factory.”
“I know it, Blainey.”
“The director’s name is Sundowner, and if he’s still alive you’ve got to reach him. Tell him Washington’s been duped, that this whole shitty business isn’t over yet, not by a longshot. Get him to call me at this number. I’ll be waiting.”
“A direct line, Blainey?”
“It’ll be the last thing the bastards are looking for. Besides, I haven’t got much of a choice. This is the only way. But speaking of ways, finding one into the Toy Factory isn’t going to be easy.”
“The spirits say that the invisible man is he whom no one bothers to see.”
“I could use a dose of that magic myself, Johnny.”
“Your manitou is restless.”
“It will continue to be as long as I’m on the trail of the only substance that might be able to save the world. The spirits ever mention anything about the continent of Atlantis, Indian?”
“Only through my ancestors, Blainey. They spoke of a paradise and an awesome power which eventually destroyed it.”
“It figures.”
“How can we go somewhere that doesn’t exist?” Natalya asked when Blaine had finished the tale of where he was headed next.
“It’s not that the island doesn’t exist; it’s just that we don’t know exactly where to find it.”